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$141,164 is barely deemed sufficient for the present year, with $25,500 for the improvement of the ground on the south and roadways and sidewalks on the north of the Executive mansion. The "horse and cart" at the end of the first half century is the prototype of this. The State department is our most conservative and stationary feature, yet the salaries and incidental expenses of the office (omitting cost of publishing laws in pamphlet form not now incurred by the department) were, during President Lincoln's administration, $73,800, and for this current year, $155,830. But the field is too large for details.

Mr. Benton, certainly a very high authority, in his "Thirty Years' View," considering the appropriations for the year 1855, in which he wrote, says:

...

"The evils of extravagance in government are great. Besides the burden upon the people, it leads to corruption in the Government and to a janissary horde of office-holders to live upon the people while polluting their elections and legislation and poisoning the fountains of public information in molding public opinion to their own purposes. . . . At the same time, it is the opinion of this writer that a practical man, acquainted with the objects for which the federal Government was created and familiar with its financial working from the time its fathers put it into operation, could take his pen and cross out nearly the one-half of these seventy odd millions, and leave the Government in its full vigor for all its proper objects, and more pure by reducing the number of those who live upon the substance of the people."

Mr. Benton, in generalizing, overestimated the expenses for Omitting the extraordinary expenditures (pensions and the public debt), they were $54,838,585.39. But when, twentyeight years later, the appropriations for current annual expenditure have reached $179,729,015.21, it is absolutely certain that if Mr. Benton's method could be applied in considering the vast body of items which make up the great aggregate, the benefit to the people would, in the elevation of their Government, enormously exceed the saving to their treasury.

The force of public opinion is nowhere, in the conduct of our affairs, so absolute as in this field of expenditure. The war of 1812 had so increased the demands on the Treasury, that in 1816, the ordinary expenditures exceeded twenty-three millions; and yet, at the close of the Fourteenth Congress, the famous "Compensation Act" was passed, enlarging the pay of congressmen from six dollars per day, during the session, to $1500 per year. This act was deemed mercenary and venal, and aroused the fiercest

indignation throughout the entire country. The obnoxious measure was promptly repealed, but the greater number of the members of Congress who had supported it were promptly and permanently retired from public life; even the matchless eloquence of Mr. Clay barely rescued him from the general wreck. This exhibition of public feeling produced positive results, and the current ordinary expenditures were heavily and persistently reduced. As late as 1823, they were $8,004,576.07, and in 1829, the last year of President John Q. Adams's administration, $11,691,615.93.

The log-cabin campaign of 1840 led to a searching inquiry into public expenditure sand reanimated the people with admiration and love for the old-time frugality of their Government. This was followed by a period of positive retrenchment; and as late as 1844, the current ordinary expenditures for the year were but $18,628,099.02. One cannot examine the financial condition of that period and of the preceding years without being impressed with the conviction that the most tempestuous political campaign, when animated by questions and measures of public administration, may have a most wholesome and purifying influence on public affairs.

An event of recent years is still more instructive. In 1873, in the closing hours of the Forty-second Congress, a large number of salaries, including those of the President of the United States and members of Congress, were greatly increased with retroactive compensation to the members of Congress, and the current ordinary appropriations of the session were increased by many millions over those of the preceding year, and by more than forty-one million dollars over the expenditures of the year next preceding that. These measures received at once universal condemnation. A feeling of mingled indignation and disappointment pervaded the country, for it had been the general belief that when the miscellaneous debts incident to the war had been adjusted, a heavy reduction of taxation and expenditure would follow. The press universally held these measures up to public condemnation as the outgrowth of a venality and self-seeking in public employments that could not be endured.

The Forty-third Congress hastened to undo the work of its predecessor so far as was possible; but the public indignation was not appeased; the enormous budget of expenditure was carefully explored, the spirit of the Grange movement, especially

in the West, inspired impartial criticism and independent action, and the House of Representatives underwent a complete revolution. Under that impulse, the current ordinary expenses of the first year for which the Forty-fourth Congress made the appropriations, were reduced to $116,246,211.01, as against $165,080,570.34, for the year for which the appropriations involving the enlarged salaries were made. In both instances pensions and the public debt are omitted, but including both would not affect the result. The ordinary expenditures of the next year, for which that Congress made the appropriations, including the army appropriations afterward made, and excluding pensions and public debt, were $107,326,433.07, since which time the expenditures have increased. In every instance of positive retrenchment, the "deficiencies" which crowd upon the ensuing years have correspondingly diminished.

These landmarks and the current history of the Government demonstrate beyond question that even the most sweeping retrenchments that have ever been made in our expenditures have not embarrassed the public service for an hour; and furthermore, that in a Government like ours there is no safe ground between severe economy and prodigal expenditure; that the administration will either be frugal and honest or lavish and corrupt; and more clearly demonstrate that the only guaranty for frugal and honest government is to be found in the vigilance and fidelity of the people.

The excellence of our system of government, with its towns, townships, cities, parishes, counties, and states, so admirably adapted to the keeping of politicial power under the eye and within the control of the people, and all united by the Federal Union, cannot be questioned. But with each of these agencies of government employing its measure of taxation; with the steady and remorseless growth of federal expenditure during the last thirty years continued in full vigor, influencing by its great and pernicious example the local governments of this wide-spread system, animating the ever-growing multitude who seek to live off the labor of other men, how long will it be before the evils which have oppressed for centuries the labor of the Old World are transplanted to the New?

A powerful motive for increased expenditure is found in the vicious practice, so long tolerated, of creating and employing public patronage as a reward for partisan services. So long as

the country acquiesces in this abuse of the public service, this disreputable and corrupting practice will continue; new avenues into the public treasury will be discovered and explored; new offices, enlarged salaries, and lucrative, contracts in countless variety and in every department of government, will demand an ever-increasing revenue. But the motives for increased expenditure are sufficiently numerous and obvious without this. A motive largely mercenary for entering the public service is fatal to public honor, and it is perfectly safe to predict that any system of civil service reform which proposes to leave the salaries of officers and employés of Government, as now, greatly above the rate of compensation paid in private employments for services requiring an equal or a similar degree of integrity, industry, and capacity, will prove a delusion and a snare." A blow at the heart of the evil would restore the sentiment of honor to the public service.

66

Fifty years ago, a distinguished writer in the NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, referring to the Athenian Republic and our own, expressed opinions touching the true policy of our Government, the stronghold of its safety, and the source of the perils to which our free institutions are exposed, the soundness of which has been confirmed by the current events of our history, social and political, of every succeeding year. He said:

"With us government is the protector of personal industry, talent, and happiness; and we are firmly persuaded that however luxury may, with the increase of wealth, diffuse itself among private individuals, frugality is the true policy of the State. . . . With us the great body of the citizens is sure to remain uncontaminated. We have far more to apprehend from the headlong ambition or downright corruption of those who are the depositories of power."

WILLIAM S. HOLMAN.

DEMOCRACY AND MORAL PROGRESS.

MR. WALT WHITMAN, in his recent impetuous, impulsive, but original and striking book, "Specimen Days and Collect,” p. 211, uses this strong language: "I say that our New World democracy, however great a success in uplifting the masses out of their slough, in materialistic developments, products, and in a certain highly deceptive superficial intellectuality, is, so far, an almost complete failure in its social aspects and in really grand religious, moral, literary, and æsthetic results. It is as if we

were somehow being endowed with a vast and more and more thoroughly appointed body, and then left with little or no soul." And again, p. 206: "For know you not, dear, earnest reader, that the people of our land may all read and write, and may all possess the right to vote, and yet the main things may be entirely lacking." These sentences express in a mild form opinions that are frequent in this remarkable volume, which, by the way, will be a surprise to some who regard their author as an altogether fleshly poet.

Now, Mr. Whitman speaks from experience. He has traveled over the country, has lived in remote parts of it, and has closely studied the people and their institutions. He is, moreover, an enthusiastic believer in republican government, perhaps the most ardent democrat living. This criticism is the result of his faith. He admonishes in the spirit of love. He is severe because he hopes so much, and sees so much to be at stake in the experiment of liberty.

To prognosticate the future of democracy is not an easy task, but oversensitiveness to fair criticism will not make it easier. The issues are concealed from all but honest and penetrating eyes; and even these must be clear of the film of prejudice. It is desirable to know the facts; but the facts are not readily accessible. Least of all will they disclose themselves to optimist or pessimist. The

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